#it started as a pandemic project and just spiraled from there

[activatebutterflyshield]

Day one of No One Asked November. Starting off with some downright ancient worldbuilding and ancient art I haven’t touched in a year. Click the image for better quality.

This is Song Played by the Wind, one of the first Sky-born dragons. When some of the Light-Born (creation beings of the stars) descended from the Celestial Firmament where nebulae dance and comets die, they shifted their many-limbed, many-eyed bodies into simplified shapes. Song Played was among the first to settle on a permanent form, shrinking his wings and closing his eyes to create the intricate patterns that adorn his body. He is revered as one of the Four High Saints by the element-born dragons, alongside Howling Strength of the Current, Paradox of the Force of Gravity, and Blazing Torch that Leads. Song Played is the High Saint of Aether.

#worldbuilding #twolad #the world of light and darkness #most of the lore i just made up on the spot #look it’s been years since I wrote anything new about twolad #it started as a pandemic project and just spiraled from there #dragon #dragon art #digital art #not a sketch for once #no one asked november

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

because this has been on my mind wrapping up the epilogue, here is a little story about how writing fanfiction for very silly sometimes awesome sometimes genuinely terrible SYFY show the magicians changed my life for real.

i started writing help, i’m alive in may 2020. as i have stated many times on this blog, the overarching goal from which this story sprung was my passionate desire to give quentin coldwater each and every last thing he deserved: i wanted to follow him all the way through a downward spiral, and then i wanted to figure out what it would take for him to climb out of the darkness and make it to somewhere he actually wanted to be. the first part of that, the part that became damage control, was some of the easiest writing i’ve ever done, even accounting for the hours spent google mapping the most depressing road trip of all time. the second part was harder, and not just because it wound up being more than four times as long (lmao). it was thornier; there were more threads to weave through; and, frankly, quentin was so fucked up that it took a lot of effort even to outline what it was he needed in order to change. i had written one story already in which the pivot happened entirely internally, an act of self-forgiveness that proved transformational, and i knew that this time i needed to give him more: actual wants, actual actions, an actual life, with actual ties not just to the people already in his circle but to the world beyond. once i had that outline, the first four chapters flowed pretty easily, anchored by the goal of hitting the story’s first big win, which is when quentin finds a way to fix something for the first time since his magic broke; chapter five was where i got stuck.

by that point, it was fall. i had quit my teaching job mid-pandemic with some modest savings, no back-up plan, and a growing realization that after five years in the classroom, teaching was no longer something i could see myself returning to; working obsessively on this story was, among other things, a great way to quiet the constant humming freak-out of what the fuck i was going to do with my life. in october doing some jump squats after sitting in bed all day i threw my back out so badly i couldn’t walk to the bathroom unassisted and paid a hundred dollars to talk to a telehealth doctor for fifteen minutes for some muscle relaxants. the pain sucked, but so did not knowing whether i was going to be better by election day — i’d signed up to be a poll worker, and i really could have used the money.

i’d started dipping my toe in some local volunteer stuff when i quit, but it was during this time that i signed up for the first time for a particular project i was really excited about joining. i did the zoom training with my camera off because my back still hurt too much to sit up; the follow-up involved scanning and emailing some personal documents and signed agreements. i didn’t do it the next day because, whatever, my back fucking hurt; i didn’t do it the day after that because…? and then, well — then i started feeling like i had missed my chance, and it was too late now.

now, here’s the thing: i say feeling like because by this point i had learned enough about the world that i knew — like, knew — that, objectively, taking a few days to send an email (during a pandemic, while i was having previously established health issues) is not considered by most people to be an unforgivable crime. i knew that i should still send the email. and i also had learned enough about myself that i could actually recognize the thing happening in my brain as an example of the kind of overly self-protective mechanisms in which i have many years of practice; i knew by then that i was an absolute expert at finding reasons to not do things that felt like they were based in truth but were really just cleverly disguised manifestations of fear, because if you do things then bad things might happen, but if you don’t do things then nothing bad happens, except that you ruin your own life. i knew all of this!! i could diagnose and analyze exactly how i was once again perpetuating the same anxiety-driven patterns that had governed so much of my life. i was conscious of the workings of my own unconscious. but i still couldn’t bring myself to send the fucking email. instead i was spending 16 hours a day alternately lying in bed and gingerly pacing in my apartment to regain mobility, feeling like shit about the fact that i wasn’t sending the email and also trying fruitlessly to unpack whatever was going on in chapter five.

the election came five days into this mess, and i did feel well enough to go work the polls. this was a great way to experience election 2020, by the way; i had to leave my apartment at like 3:30 in the morning and by the time the returns started coming in i was too delirious to have any emotions about them whatsoever. it was also, not to be a shill for electoral politics, genuinely kind of inspiring: all these people lining up to Do Democracy, the deployment of translators to assist across languages, the columbia undergrad from the neighborhood we were in i was paired with at the info desk who told me he wanted to go into politics and said very seriously, upon hearing i had a friend in the grad school there, “you should tell them to join the union.” plus, you know, the high of doing something, surrounded by other human beings, at a time when that sort of thing had been in short order for the work-from-home crowd for months, and i personally had recently been confined to my bed for several days.

leaving the site that night, entering my twentieth consecutive hour awake, i felt this weird mix of spiritually rejuvenated and psychologically worse. i had just lived through this physical proof of how doing things is both not that scary and kind of awesome, i had spent a day living in alignment with the kind of person i wanted to be, i felt a fresh rush of love for my city and its people — and i still couldn’t imagine sending the fucking email! it was like i was looking at the thing i wanted most through a pane of glass, and the glass was actually really easy to break, so the only thing stopping me was that i was too much of a baby to do it.

and the thought that i had then, i fucking swear, was: i would be such a fucking hypocrite if i wrote quentin coldwater into a happy ending i’m too cowardly to give myself.

which is, first of all: SOOOOOOOO corny, like omg. unbelievably cringe. embarrassing as hell. but it was also my truth at that moment in time. i had no faith in my own ability to change, but i had spent five months and counting thinking about almost nothing else except the story i was writing in which quentin also has no faith in his ability to change but is brave enough to do it anyway, and i really felt like — i could not live with myself putting these ideas out into the world and refusing to integrate them into my own life. i could not write this promise that something better was possible for quentin if i wasn’t even going to try to make it possible for me. i could, apparently, live forever with my constant self-sabotage, but i couldn’t live with myself making this story a lie (this story being, again, fanfiction for a TV show that was, at its best, so great, and also, at its worst, so, SO stupid).

and like… that worked. i emailed the documents the next day; i attended my first monthly zoom meeting that weekend, during which the election was officially called, which felt like a good omen. i summoned the idea that had presented itself to me that night — don’t be a hypocrite! do what you would want quentin to do! — again a while later when my email got lost in the shuffle and i had to send a check-in following up, and again every other time something came up where my fear had to war it out with my desire. (or, well, most other times — it's a work in progress, and yes, i do still find myself calling upon this logic to this day.)

my life now looks more like the happy ending i wrote quentin into than it did almost four years ago, when i started this story, or even three years ago, when i finished it. it looks more like that future than i ever imagined my life could look when i was writing it, and not just because, as i have mentioned before, a few weeks after my election night revelation, i did do as quentin did and befriend a community-minded extrovert who invited me to join a book club. even the fact that the final part of the epilogue has taken me so much longer than expected is a funny case of life imitating art, because while i have had work and illness and travel and general life stress, i have also had many days in the past few months where i was not very productive because i was simply too busy doing something fun — the kind of never-quite-solved balancing act quentin was set to deal with in the epilogue back when i first started kicking it around, well over two years ago at this point, but which was not really applicable to my own life until basically now. and it sounds even to my own ears so, so, so insane to say this, but it’s true: i can trace every aspect of that shift to the fact that i wrote this story, and that writing it fundamentally changed something inside me for the better. (shout-out to the people in the comments who noted that the story was, in a meta sense, my own version of quentin’s coffee maker; i knew you were right, but i don’t think i knew how right until this recent bout of reflection.)

i don't really know that there's a take-away here, because "quit your job and write four hundred thousand words about a weird TV show with a niche audience" is not exactly universally applicable advice. but if i were to try to find one, i think it would be something like: i felt really crazy and kind of embarrassed the entire time i was writing this story, not because i was writing fanfiction, or because it was incredibly horny and wildly self-indulgent, but because it mattered to me so, so deeply. it was one thing to have a fun goofy hobby, even a fun goofy hobby i took semi-seriously and poured a lot of time and effort into, but it was another to actually, like, care, and to care a lot, which i did. but if i hadn't accepted that this story mattered to me, i don't think it could have been as personally transformational as it wound up becoming. the heart wants what it wants, and you're only going to find out what that is if you're willing to listen to whatever rhythm it beats.

i solved chapter five on the way home from the poll site, by the way. i knew there needed to be some problem with quentin’s first semi-successful attempt to mend the coffee maker, but i couldn’t figure out how it tied in thematically with where he was in his life. on the bus it hit me: quentin and the coffee maker were both trying to remain unbreakable. an appealing idea if you’ve been broken, but one more conducive to stagnancy than to growth; you can stay there for a while, but eventually you need to let yourself want more.

#writing tag #the magicians #isabel 2k24

[ayeforscotland]

I'm not a super dedicated gamer these days, but I loved Kerbal Space Program (a game that was more a labour of love than a commercial project) and was super hyped for the much delayed KSP2. When I saw it was releasing as early access (years late) I worried for its hopes of ever seeing completion and held off buying, now after all the other shananigans the entire team have been let go in yet another mass lay-off in the gaming industry. I feel like, a few notable exceptions aside, the big-budget gaming sector has been failing to deliver real quality games for a long time now, with lower-budget indie games more often coming up with gold from much simpler foundations. It seems almost as though developers are being pushed to shoot for unachievably epic games and releasing buggy messes, or vast but hollow worlds when the publishers get impatient or the money runs out. Is there any grain of truth in my feeling that bankrollers' expectations for games is leading to more games failing to live up to the hype as projects spiral out of control and over budget? Would big studios benefit from learning from indie devs and aiming to really nail down a simpler scope but on a scale beyond what the indies can achieve?

Industry-wise there’s a couple of things at play. And apologies for the length of this.

During the pandemic, there was a shitload of investment into the gaming industry as everyone was at home and many started playing games for the first time, so venture capital firms piled money in.

They were looking for a return on their investment, not really aiming to cultivate long-term studio success.

This puts pressure on the studio to get the game out the door quickly. That month or two of QA before launch just becomes overhead while you have a product that could be selling right now.

Chance to earn even more money for shareholders and execs? Welcome to microtransaction hell.

So that’s one side of it, investors/shareholders/execs forcing decisions that make games worse.

Next bit is partly influenced by the shareholder side of things but also a huge cultural side too. Lots of studios complete a project and then layoff staff because the next game isn’t ready to start being developed yet OR layoff staff because they don’t want to pay them OR staff leave to go and do something else (often due to lack of pay, lack of promotion etc)

And what this leads to is a *massive* corporate knowledge gap. People take their skills and knowledge and create voids. Voids that need to be filled by senior staff, which is why big AAA studios are always hiring seniors, and rarely hiring juniors. So all the seniors job-hop from studio to studio and there’s no new skill set being cultivated by new industry talent.

In my experience, these huge studios are also incredibly siloed. It’s something that impacts most industries, siloed teams lead to sluggish development and decision-making.

I think the games industry walks an incredibly fine line between being a creative endeavour and being a tech business. Process management methodologies honestly seem quite alien to the games industry, most of the time to its detriment.

It honestly wouldn’t be that hard to implement but Production as a discipline within games seems to be relegated to ‘staring at JIRA’ particularly in larger studios.

Could write forever about this to be honest.

Worth saying that indie studios also have their own issues. Almost everything is a scramble, and the search for publisher funding is a nightmare.

[justlittleguysims]

Mobsters Galore: More of Dom's Henchmen - 2021

I made some more mobster co-workers for Derek to interact with while at work. His Boss, Dom, just really needed more names to scream other than our boy, so... here we go. You can find my first henchmen intro post HERE.

@daedriyth is responsible for pitching the last two characters, but the middle-aged men are all me though, lol.

From Left to Right w/ Blurbs under the cut: Carmine Notaro, Marco Valenti, Giacomo Monti, Nora Notaro

Carmine Notaro

Age: 63 || Birthday: November 13th ♏ || Traits: Perfectionist, Bookworm, Neat

Carmine is Dom's oldest friend, bookkeeper, and all-around right-hand man. He comes from a long family line of accountants and is the 6th generation owner of the Notaro Family accounting firm. Traditionally, the firm has always been led by a male family member, but with all five of his children now being young adult women, he is preparing to leave his business to his eldest daughter, Nora, the only child who has ever shown any interest in the family’s work. Carmine does, however, worry about Nora falling deep into the folds of the Mafia through her work at the firm, just as he did at around her age. He will never admit it, but he was always sort of relieved by the fact he had no sons, and he's proud that all his daughters have been busy doing their own thing and haven't married back into the mob like some of his own sisters did, but now, is Nora really starting to scare him.

Marco Valenti

Age: 61 || Birthday: August 12th ♌ || Traits: Self-Assured, Mean, Loyal

Marco Valenti is a bit of an old school legend in Dom's inner circle. His closest friends have jokingly been calling him "Mr. Clean" for years since he used to be known for his clean up jobs. He's semi-retired from that now, but to this day, nobody can make a problem disappear better than Valenti. Dom and Valenti are now business partners, splitting the expenses on their first joint renovation project, which they hope to have finished by the end of 2022. He and Carmine are very close friends as well and can often be found spending their down time from the Reno together, smoking their favorite Cuban cigars and drinking their scotch neat. Besides all the work stuff, Valenti makes cannelloni alla Bolognese that is simply to die for, and he enjoys helping his wife train her show dogs. He will fight you if you make fun of his 4 miniature poodles, they are insured, and he is a very good shot. Do not test him!

Giacomo Monti

Age: 31 || Birthday: March 19th ♓ ||Traits: Romantic, High-Maintenance, Clumsy

Monti is one of Dom's many nephews, and the most recent addition to Dom's inner circle… albeit more so out of necessity on his part. Nearly 4 years ago, he used his family connections to get a cushy, government desk job at the municipal Treasury office in Cicero, IL. But last President’s Day, in the midst of the pandemic, while his office was closed for the holiday, he chose to indulge in a little workplace fantasy with a lady friend of his who decided to record a POV video of her playtime with him. A few months later, she accidentally uploaded the video to her OF page, without censoring his face, starting a sex scandal that then spiraled into a full investigation, revealing Monti was embezzling money from the Treasury to generously pay and tip all the sex workers he regularly hired. Now his uncle Dom is working on damage control for his reputation, graciously giving Monti a place to stay as he works through his community service while on probation. Dom has also been pairing Derek up with Monti to run errands for the reno team, hoping Derek’s calm, family man demeanor will rub off on him… but it probably won't. Let's be real.

Lanora "Nora" Notaro

Age: 29 || Birthday: December 22nd ♑ || Traits: Ambitious, Insider, Active

Nora is Carmine's eldest daughter and has been working alongside him for years in his accounting firm, working hard to prove to him that she can carry on his practice and the family name. She knows that he worries about her, especially now that she's been helping out at Dom's renovation site, mostly out of boredom, and to see her old friend, Monti, again. She is a petite, out lesbian, now working mostly with rough and tumble, very traditional Italian men, many of whom are twice her age. She understands his apprehension there, but she's still eager to show everyone just how capable she truly is. She's been sparring with Newell for a while now, she's gained 10 pounds of muscle, and she couldn't care less about what anyone thinks of her. She just wants to do her job, and she craves the power and connections that come with it. Monti, however, is still confused about why she wants to be in the mob so badly, especially when he's trying to get out, but he does appreciate having her around all the time, especially since she seems to have no problem fending off all the guys who've been poking fun at him for his situation.

About Untitled WIP Project || Read it HERE

Further Reading: OC Intros Pt. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 || Pizza Gang Pt. 1 | 2 | 3 || Family Intros Pt. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 || The Henchmen Pt. 1 | 2 || Multiverse Characters Pt. 1 || Monti’s Secret Pt. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

#justlittleguy posting #show us your sims #ts4 simblr #simblr #ts4 mobsters #project: wip #project wip: the henchmen #project wip: carmine #project wip: velanti #project wip: nora #project wip: monti #my ocs #my sims #my stories #queer sims #mobster sims #oc deets

[neitherabaron]

You mentioned that you've finished writing Gobelins, and I'm wondering if you're gonna raise money to produce it, or do it out of your own pocket? Either way, I'm very excited to hear it, hope your op goes well!

Thanks for a great question! There's definitely gonna be an Indiegogo fundraiser at some point before I start production, but the scale of that is going to need to depend on what my life is looking like at that time. In other words, when I’m physically able to devote time to the album again, I’m going to have to assess my capacity before deciding the scope of the project.

Basically, there's an "ideal" way I'd like to make Carnaval des Gobelins, with a physical edition, cool merch for backers, guest musicians and liner art commissions. I think it's gonna be the most satisfying experience for listeners and the best move from a "growing my business" point of view - producing that kind of stuff gives me a chance to order excess merch and another little revenue stream, which would take me a little step closer to making this my main job. But, it's also a big project to manage and as much as I want to do it that way, I'm not gonna bet on being physically well enough to do that until things are clearer. I'm pretty dang ill.

Then there are other options - like limiting that stuff to a digital version for Bandcamp and streaming, plus physical CDs that are a bit more pared-down in terms of liner content. And on the other side of the spectrum, there's just producing a digital album, like I did for The Wassailant, which while still a big project would be logistically simpler and would require the least amount of funding.

I'm going to run a fundraiser no matter what the scope ends up being and the reason for that is that I'm handling the production for C des Gs alone, in my studio. I have a great set-up and good technical knowledge nowadays and can make stuff with much higher production values without the spiralling costs of studio and engineer hire. However, to get the album done, I'm going to need to treat it as a part-time job for about a year and so I'm going to have to find a way to help me through that time financially. The reason I was able to finish The Wassailant within a year was because of all the time spent at home during the pandemic! I'm not going to start production until I find a new part-time day job anyway, so I certainly won't be trying to raise the sort of money to depend on! But I probably will be earning less from a day job while I work on the album and I will need a small amount to supplement that/keep for emergencies if something goes wrong for me in that time - so that I don't have to halt production part way through.

So the low-scope, digital-only version would still be a crowd-funded affair, just a fairly low scale one. For the big one with all the cool rewards and awesome CDs and everything, I guess my other mini-worry is I don't actually know whether the funding goals I’d have to set to produce all the awesome extras are actually realistic to what people can afford. I don’t know if I could fund a project at the same level as a Mechanisms album for example, because I don’t have the same reach the band did. But we’re probably looking at something comparable, cost-wise, to The Bifrost Incident (but closer to its goal, not the final amount it was pledged) to produce the “full scope” version. Plus, the last time I ran projected costs for the project was before the cost of living crisis, so I don't know right now whether the CD/merch suppliers' costs will have increased.

I genuinely feel a ton of support and goodwill from people like you who really want to listen and I know there are plenty of you! But also I truly don't want to assume anything from you, so we'll have to see how realistic it is to make the full bells-and-whistles version, financially or in terms of my capacity, nearer the time. The way I'm feeling as I type this is that I may run the Indiegogo with a lower inital goal and just a couple of reward tiers (aiming to fund production and release the digital album and a simpler physical edition) and try to do some of the other stuff like an expanded liner or producing merch (and making merch available at discounted rates to backers who want it) as stretch goals.

Anyway, that is almost definitely a much longer answer than you were looking for, so I'll stop now. I really do appreciate the great ask; having the chance to thing about a proper answer has helped me straighten a few conflicts in my head that were causing me a little worry. Hope you have a great day!

If you've read this far, thanks! Please reblog this if this sort of thing is something you'd be interested in supporting and would like to spread the word. I don't know when I'll be ready to start a campaign, but I want more than anything to get dates for my ops, recover to the extent I can, and do it soon.

#kofi young #carnaval des gobelins

[sonic-spirit]

Okay, let's fuckin gooooo!!!

I'm seeing if I can do a blog post every day to try and get myself through more of that wall of awful brain garbage that's been gumming things up inside me. I have a lot of topics I've been wanting to talk about, and stories I've been wanting to record, and, yanno. The only way out is through.

It was my first day off I haven't shared with one of my mates in awhile, so that ended up shaping how I approached the day. I started a bit of a decluttering project, since we do have a lot of stuff with no homes right now. I'm not willing to mess with my mates' stuff, but in the two years since moving all the way out here my hyper pared-down stuff has grown, and I was definitely due for some re-organizing and looking it all over for stuff I don't want or need anymore. A big part of the project today was breaking down the variety of little caches I'd developed in a few spots in the apartment and keeping like things together, especially toys and art supplies. I have some big traditional media projects I've been gearing up for, and the more ready things are to get started, the more convenient I make my setups to hit the ground running, the more likely I am to actually do them.

Talking about that stuff was supposed to help me ease into writing about one of the more emotionally charged things I've been meaning to write about, ^_^;; but if I segue into talking about Otherkin stuff from decluttering, the post's kinda gonna feel uneven to me. So, okay, let's talk about, as I have it in my notes:

The Time I Drove Across the Country 3 Times to Save My Life

I feel guilty about looking at it as anything but a tragedy, millions of people died, and who knows how many more were permanently disabled, and so many could have been okay if the people in power hadn't been so eager to throw them to the mercies of an uncaring disease. But, selfishly, COVID saved my life.

My mental health still isn't great. There are always ups and downs, and I've been under a lot of financial stress that's been causing me to spiral in a lot of other ways again. But before COVID it was so, so much worse. I wasn't still living with my abusive parents at the time, but I was working for them, and still beholden to them socially and financially. And I was...loosing resiliency. Going to cons and spending time with my friends wasn't...well, if wasn't enough to offset how the rest of it was wearing on me, dealing with my abusers, doing a job I hated and where I constantly felt like I was failing, and I was losing ground. I'd been suicidal for years and years, and I didn't think I had much fight left in me. I'd also been trying to escape, with interruptions to triage myself to keep functioning, for even longer. I was tired, and I was getting desperate.

COVID bought me more time.

Everything going into shutdown was bad. And let me be perfectly clear, shutting down was the right thing to happen, there were so, so many people who should not have died. But for the first time in ten years, I got some distance from my abusive parents. I didn't have to go into a job and see them all the time, I didn't have to go over to their house and play nice and cow-tow to them every week.

For the first time in so, so long, I got a reprieve.

It was still hard, I missed my friends, and the stress of living under the threat of a pandemic was huge. But I finally started to be able to put myself back together again. Just a little bit. And that made all the difference in the world.

And then, in the heart of all this uncertainty, one of my really, really good friends who I'd fallen out of contact with a few years prior reached out, and we reconnected. We talked, and talked, and one thing led to another, and eventually we started dating.

My parents had eroded most of the COVID protections at my job by this time, having us back working in the office, opening the office to the public, and things were quickly becoming untenable for me again. My friends, in person and long distance, did their best to help. As much as I would let them see how deeply I was struggling.

Then came the Thanksgiving trip.

I'd been very resistant to flying to Florida with my family in the Thanksgiving of a pandemic. But my mom had bartered with me. If I went on this trip, they wouldn't force me into going on the Christmas trip. -_- And how could I say no to a deal like that. Look, I didn't have many options, and again, I was beholden to them. I could only fight so hard. So, I went. And it was worse than I had even expected.

Never masking in a state with abysmal infection numbers, never taking advantage of outside seating at restaurants, eating out for every meal was bad enough. The endless refrain of Fox News and fascistic dogwhistles put me over the edge. I knew they wanted who I really was dead. But...living inside it...I was done. I needed to escape, by any means necessary. My friends were alarmed and rightly so. I redoubled my efforts to find another job as means of escape, and determined I would not do this ever again. I would give myself a deadline to get out.

When my relationship started with my mate, I changed my focus to jobs in the San Jose area. And in February, I finally had an opportunity. Two jobs wanted me to come in and interview, and I'd already blocked out a long weekend for that year's virtual FurSquared con. Instead, I loaded myself and my 16-year-old kidney diseased kitty, and everything I though I couldn't do without in case I decided to simply never come back, and drove the 3,000 miles from Illinois to California in 3 days.

It was ROUGH. I didn't give myself a very reasonable timeline to get there, and driving 10-hour or more days, going from cat-friendly hotel to cat-friendly hotel was A Lot. Giving Zi her subcutaneous fluids in hotel rooms was a wild experience. But eventually, we made it. I met up with my mate, changed clothes and ran out for an interview...^_^;; which I actually missed because I'd taken too long to get there. But spending the night with my mate and their partner, feeling safe with them...they offered to let me stay, and I tearfully admitted that I didn't want to leave.

I almost just stayed. I wanted to, badly. But I still had a house to get out from under, and I needed to go back and sell it. I went to the second interview, where neither of us impressed one another, and drove Zi and myself back, escape plan in gear.

My house was a horrifically cluttered mess when I called the realtor who'd helped me buy it and asked him to help me sell, but he was still generous when he came by to talk with me. The market was good, he told me, and places were getting sold even before they were properly listed. I signed the papers, and started getting to work on paring everything down and packing.

It quickly became clear that storage or moving things or Uhauls would be prohibitively expensive for me, easily over $1,000 for the cheapest options. Since I would be moving without a job set up, and without any form of income when I left, the only reasonable option was to only bring what I could fit in my car, and donate or sell the rest. It was hard, emotional work, and I had to make a lot of hard decisions (and a lot of use of Facebook Marketplace for the first time), but I made it happen, and by mid April, I finally left.

I had a celebratory going away party the night before leaving, where we drank and had fun, and enjoyed one another's company. And then my friends came and helped me with the last of the junk I hadn't managed to get through the next morning. They held me while I had a panic attack over telling my parents I was leaving, and helped me to be able to go.

In the end, the people who really knew me, who really loved me, saved me.

Finally, I headed out with Zi, deciding to drive...less stupid hours this time. I limited myself to 8 hour driving days, and just did a few more days. Memorably, one morning when I was trying to get us out the door and checked out, I couldn't find Zi. I searched that hotel room for my kitty for a good half hour before I finally found her--she'd somehow managed to open a drawer, climb inside, and shut herself in!

I'd expected to feel freed, relieved. I'd expected to feel a weight off myself immediately. But mostly, what I'd felt at first was numb grief. I was so tired. I was glad to be going, excited to be with people I loved. But I still felt bad. Everything they would have thought of the situation echoed in my mind, and it hurt. I knew I was right to go. I knew there was no way they'd ever stop hurting me. I knew I needed to get away. But their words, of how selfish I was, echoed inside me.

It's still hard sometimes. Abuse echoes still. But I'm so, so fucking relieved to be out. And so, so fucking grateful to be with my partners.

#sonic says #sonic sez #tw mental illness #mental health #tw suicidality #tw suicide mention #tw suicide

[not-close-to-straight]

Do you think that you will ever go back to writing new Marvel fics, apart from the two ongoing ones that you started before getting into Stranger Things content?

Ummmmm

Honestly probably not.

I'm burnt out on Marvel, all my favorite characters are dead and the ones that aren't are involved in projects that I just don't care about. My fan fics have gotten so intensely AU that they are barely fan fiction anymore, like I'm just borrowing the names and then creating all the other stuff so I'm sort of like... at that point, maybe I should just switch to original fiction?

Not to mention the fandom feels like it's changed, and I know that makes me sound like a thousand years old but like.. .the engagement is super far down, I went from averaging over 50 comments on pretty much every chapter posted to being lucky to get ten, 25 asks in my box to maybe 2 or 3. Between Endgame in 2019 and the pandemic affecting so many people, readership and users is wayyyyyy down and it's difficult to create for a fandom that has moved on from all my favorite parts of it (infinity saga, for the most part)

Also? I feel like I've written all my good ideas. I've done huge historical au's and sweeping epic royalty ones and westerns and indepth angsty time travel ones and holiday themed and wings and canon fix its and rewrites and super intense Omegaverse and literally hundreds of short stories...like 5 million words worth of Marvel. Now whenever I get a new idea, it's more like "oh we already tried that"

Feel like maybe it's time to move on. I'm excited about alot of the upcoming things in MAMC and Codependent is such a fun story but beyond that... meh.

But of course that being said, I had to cancel like 6 commissions this year because I was so sick for so long and couldn't promise I'd get to them, so there are a few stories I was really looking forward to writing that I might get to next year.

I didn't expect to fall so far into Stranger Things, tbh. But before I got into it, I was really starting to feel like I was pretty much done writing. Like I was going to finish MAMC and Codependent and then I didn't really know if I had anything else left to write.

But then seriously, I got a text from one of my readers asking "hey do you watch ST" and I was like, well yeah, why?

And things just... spiraled...from there. I really clicked into the Winteriron-eque dynamic of Steddie and the Spideypool vibe dynamic of BillySteve so some of my lingering Marvel ideas I switched over to ST and IMMEDIATELY I was 1000% more excited for it, I love the "newness" of the characters as in, they haven't lived even most of their lives yet so the amount of stories that can be told are ENDLESS... I have dozens of pages of ideas for them and I can't wait to get into it.

Thankfully, alot of my readers have been willing to read my ST things too and I'm so grateful for the ones that follow me over to that fandom for sure.

[choicesficwriterscreations]

CFWC Writer of the Month: Utterlyinevitable / Catchinglikekerosene

Each month CFWC highlights one of our many talented fanfic writers and this month’s writer of the month is @utterlyinevitable​! (Also @catchinglikekerosene ) We hope you will enjoy learning more about her and her work below! Writer is selected at random. More info can be found on the navigation page.

Blog: @utterlyinevitable (and @catchinglikekerosene)

Blog Masterlist

How do you want to be known on Tumblr? dom

1- When did you start playing Choices? What's the first book you played? 

I was a casual player early on - like the summer after Rules of Engagement came out early. Then I rediscovered it in 2019, playing ROD and TRR before bed. True obsession didn’t kick in until 2020 when I became enlightened to Open Heart’s existence.  

2- When, and why, did you join Choices fandom?.

I joined the fandom early summer-ish 2020, when oph2 was on their first break. Also was the instigator of my return to tumblr and the joy of fanfics. Ethan Ramsey became my pandemic hyperfixation and I NEEDED to know what happened after the 2.9 kiss!

3- How did you pick your url name? 

I never liked fandom-specific names so I went for something that could ebb and flow with my obsessions. Something about ‘delaying the inevitable’ and Ethan and MC being utterly inevitable seemed to fit 😆

4- Go back to your archive and tell us about the first post on your Choices blog. 

Oh godddd okay… 

my first ever post on my sideblog is this reblog confession about wanting an oph prequel. I’d still kill for one! 

the first post by me on my sideblog is this one calling ethan out for removing his shirt instead of just the metal parts in the fmri scene lol 

and my actual first ever post in the choices fandom is part 1 of Do We Have A Future? (on my main blog, back when the series was just a one shot) 

5- How long have you been writing fanfiction?

Noooo don’t call me out like this 😂 !! I’ve been writing since twilight was in theatres…. 

I took a very long break from it when I went off to uni

6- What is your favorite Choices book to write about?

Open Heart. I love their characterizations and how relatable and flawed all of them are. Makes for some great fic material! 

7- Share the first fanfic you wrote with us. Do you still like it or would you change anything about it?

Do We Have A Future? 

I love this series. Anyone who has read it will know that it’s very personal. 

The only thing I would change about it is the opportunity to make it longer. A life goal of mine is to make this series into 3 novellas. 

8- What is your favorite fic that you’ve written?

It’s a tie (sorry, I can’t choose just one!). My magnum opus FATL and my longest one-shot Make Believe. I love these two because they’re emotional and driven by non-verbal cues. They’re hopeful and just a little sad. Which apparently is my brand. 

↠ For All The LiesTwo years after OHSY and after Becca left, she’s back in town and runs into Ethan. She never imagined she’d see him again, let alone to hear those words.

↠ Make Believe Ⓜ️    Becca and Ethan are cuddling in the chalet, fantasizing about what their meeting would be like if they were normal people. Set in OHSY Chapter 14.

9- Do you have a fic that you didn’t expect to be well received, but it was? What about one you expected to be, but it could use a little more love?

I’m still surprised by the love that Hurricane got! At the time it was the closest thing I’ve ever written to crack fics - a ‘protection’ prompt spiraling into something else. At one point this fic was the bane of my existence because I couldn’t get the plot just right. 

Because I’m a little vain and thrive on validation, I’ll choose a fic from each of my main pairings that could use a toot or two ;) 

An Evening in December (Bryce Lahela x F!OC) - this piece specifically is from a bigger original work project that any sort of feedback is most appreciated! 

Music & Secrets: Part 3 (Ethan Ramsey x F!MC) -  my sweet friends-to-lovers babes going on their first unofficial date! 

Again. (Ethan Ramsey x F!MC) - written with only an audience of 2 in mind, but part of the DWHAF saga and thus it belongs on a pedestal. 

10- What is your specialty as a fanfic writer?

Pain? Sadness? At one point I did win an open heart award for angst 😆 

I write realistic and flawed characters, usually not under fluffy circumstances.  

11- If you could write only angst, fluff, or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why? 

Angst. There are hundreds of ways any confrontation or situation could play out and I like to explore those choices and feelings. And they could have a happy ending too! 

12- Do you ever recognize yourself in any of your MC’s or in your writing?

lmao yes. All my MCs have parts of me. Becca is by far my projection character, Hannah gets all my flaws, and Odette I live vicariously through.  

13- What element of writing do you struggle with most?

Descriptions! They suuuuck! 

Whenever I write a piece the first thing out of my head is the lines of dialogue. Since my fics aren’t dialogue-driven they serve as a map for all the describey bits. 

14- Do you have any neglected work you really want to finish?

So many in my wip graveyard and fic requests I really need to finish. 

Because of what’s happening with Roe vs Wade I’ve really been keen to finish writing my mini series Unethical, which I started writing Summer 2020. 

15- If someone you know in real life (who isn’t involved in fandoms) asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first?

This is such a loaded question! It depends on the work tbh and who the person is. My hubs is not allowed to read anything because he’d definitely be concerned, my bestie is. Though I’d only show her DWHAF or Make Believe. 

16- Are there any writers (published authors and/or fanfic writers) who influenced your writing?

So many! Fandom writers, there’s @alwaysmychoices who can have you crying in a single sentence and I admire the way she describes scenes, and the world she’s created for Ethan and Charlie. Then there’s @jamespotterthefirst who not only is an amazing writer and the queen of content, Bree has such thought-out characters, really inspires me to think past the piece I’m writing and develop my characters further. 

I’m sure there are authors that have inspired my writing and I’m blanking on them all right now. If I could ever write something with the acclaim, simplicity, and metaphorical complexity of The Great Gatsby, I’d die happy.  

17- Which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series? 

Is it weird that I envision all my works as a piece of film whilst writing them? 

If DWHAF ever became a bigger project, that’s what I’d like adapted. 

If I could only have one scene put to screen I’d like it to be Crescendo. 

18- Do you write original stories?

I try. There are certain fanfic pairings I have that I use specifically to help me navigate original thoughts and storylines. 

19 -  What other hobbies do you have?

Hobby? What hobby? I’m an adult. 

lol 

aside from writing and doomscrolling, I read and cook and play with my puppy. 

20 - What’s your favorite emoji? 

😂 is my most used emoji. 

21: BONUS - tell us anything you’d like (if you want to).

Thank you @choicesficwriterscreations for selecting me! I know I haven’t been the most active recently so it means the most that I’m still being considered. Also a HUGE shout out to @gryffindordaughterofathena and @liaromancewriter for all the work they’ve been doing to maintain @openheartfanfics in my absence. This fandom is amazing and unlike any other, I am so thankful for all the friends I’ve made the last two years <3

#choices fic writers creations #cfwc writer of the month #writer of the month #utterlyinevitable #catchinglikekerosene

[lapinlunaire-games]

hi jinx ❤️ you said you will NOT tag that article as about your shakespearian projects, but... how about being.... not so normal about here? like what did that article about the bubonic plague impacting shakespeare's works make you think about? what thoughts about your own projects did it lead you to?? 👀👀👀

hello tamber ❤️ hehehe the floodgates have been opened! warning for a long, Not Normal ramble ahead :D

So straight away the headline made me go "!!!" because Elsinore: After Hamlet started off as a final project for a class on the intersection of medicine and literature. This was spring 2021, dear old pandemmy was having a grand time wrecking everything, and in my everlasting wisdom and sleep deprivation, I decided to write an interactive personal essay that linked my personal fears and anger to literature (very original, yes). It went through a few transformations, but what's up on itch currently really does capture my mental state at that point in time.

It was interesting to think about in context of the article because she talks about how studying the plays today act as a kind of window into Shakespeare's time, and connect the text to us today - and that's the kind of mindset I went into the project with. But what really got me thinking is that if you play Elsinore now, you don't necessarily see into Shakespeare's time. You see directly into April/May 2021, and specifically into my brain at the time. You will see the specific things that kept me up at night - even when I go back and play it now, I find myself surprised at how much I feel separated from the narration, even though those were my thoughts and feelings and struggles just a year ago.

To actually answer your question lol, the article really got me thinking about how my game is a time capsule wrapped in another time capsule - when you play it, you look at Shakespeare's world through my eyes at a very specific point in time. It's like looking through a kaleidoscope, a little bit!

And as for Romeo and Juliet...traditionally, this is the play that academia recognizes the most as Shakespeare's "plague play", because it has that context in the setting! And the things in the article - class divides and how that changes who was affected and how by the pandemic, finger-pointing blame at convenient scapegoats - those are very core to both Elsinore and In the Beautiful Country, my cyberpunk post-R and J WIP. So that was validating to hear in a way, that it isn't just me sitting on the couch on my laptop and spiraling. Especially now that so much of society is treating the pandemic as a "done" thing when it just isn't, sometimes I feel a little in my head writing about how it's still affecting daily life.

Thinking about Romeo and Juliet as a plague play also just makes me love the text and working with it in a (to quote Ao3) transformative way even more: it's a love story, it's a tragedy, it's about sickness and poison and how things from the world get in your blood and in your brain, for better and for worse. Love is sickness and it's a cure, and sometimes it isn't enough to be both.

#thank you SO SO SO much for this ask tamber i am CRADLING it very close to my chest forever #<33333333 #i am so sorry that i am incapable of being concise hahaha #seriously i am so overjoyed to talk about this and i hope it wasn't boring to read #also if you read this entire thing i luv u 5ever and am giving you a cookie #dev diary #jinx.txt

[overbearingstruggles]

To your tags on your last post what do you think changed in Jack? I mean I noticed it as well but what do you think made him lose his spark and what do you think is the reason he’s got it back?

In this essay!!! 2015 is a dichotomy of career highs and personal stagnation. And Jack was absolutely showing lonely little depression hints he didn’t realize yet. Career-wise, ATL was peaking. Biggest shows they ever played, technically a #1 album, fucking crushing it after the rollercoaster of the previous 4 years and after they had kinda accepted what their existence might be. Meanwhile the besties are moving into next phases of life - Alex is engaged, Rian is steady, Grieco and whoever else it was that lived in that last Baltimore place with him (Steve? Dan?) were moving in with serious girlfriends. Not for nothing, we also enter MeToo and a necessary culture shift which obviously isn’t super welcoming of ATL and especially Jack’s raunchy brand. The boy is becoming a little lost and decides to run away and move to LA full time. But for much of 2016 he’s looking for anyone with a similar schedule to hang out with and being a little sweetly pathetic and a little annoying. He is searching for distraction. Everyone and everything is kind of changing but he’s not and it’s kinda lonely.

I’m always going to wonder if dating Andie wasn’t partially him doing something he felt like he should - proving he could grow up and be relationship guy too. Maybe he really did just see something different in her, we’ll never know. But mid-2016 he also seemed to be falling into different circles and partying harder. Wonderful atmosphere to be in when you’re doubting who you are.

Move into LYR era which has a such a different vibe. The mood is subdued, a semi-somber semi-mature aesthetic and it almost makes sense that Jack is different, it fits the scene imo. He very obviously no longer wants to be the caricature of everything he created but he doesn’t seem to know what else to do and boy is he struggling. I think he had a hard time sorting out him vs the persona vs pleasing fans. The Andie breakup was a boiling point that had been building and the spiral was ugly.

But he finally started going to therapy and that was huge. I feel like pandemic giving him a chance to not feel like he needed to be out and big and social all the time was really good for him too, and helped him accept that you can just sit some out and exist quietly. Somewhere over the last 2 years he worked through some some shit and seems healthy. And crazy enough, I now wonder if he understands he’s going through one of the worst things he’s ever going to and is okay. Not unscathed, but fine. That’s a real projection tho because I also think him being a little dim/immature protects him from the same introspective spirals as say, Alex. But I’m so happy he’s good.

#I haven’t spent absurd amounts of time thinking about this clearly #normal thoughts up here all day. those ​200 words? never seen em #jb #answered ask #* #if anyone official wants to critique/correct my narrative plz lmk. am i close?

[superfluouskeys]

19. Do you enjoy creating OCs or do you prefer to stick solely to canon characters?

29. What’s something about your writing that you’re proud of?

THANK YOU for indulging me friend you have saved me from a terrible fate (doing my homework)

19. Do you enjoy creating OCs or do you prefer to stick solely to canon characters?

It depends!  I think bc of the way I started with fanfic I definitely err on the side of enjoying interpreting canon events/characters in my own way/to suit my own purposes, and I don’t like to add OCs if there’s not a specific “spot” for them, if that makes sense, because that’s what tends to feel off to people reading.

In the case of video games with character customization there’s already that spot for an OC, and that OC’s family, friends, etc. within the context of the story but also removed from it.  But even in that context I do lean towards keeping whatever canon elements of that character the game offers, not only because that’s going to keep the overall story feeling natural but also because it offers me an interesting framework for creating my character—certain events/responses to events being indelible even when they seem contrary to what I’ve imagined can create a kind of character justification challenge that I’ve always enjoyed.

I think I am leaning a lot more towards wanting to write more OCs/original work lately, though���actually, I was thinking about this because I was rereading a bit of The Prisoner last night.  I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently, just because, you know, it took up such a large chunk of my life lol.  And I sort of miss it in a way, but my interest is much more on my OCs and their stories than on the actual canon characters and main focus of the story at this point LOL.  Maybe leaning back towards reimagining it as a fully original work someday, since it’s really so close already, and it has some elements I’m very proud of.

In a similar vein, I’ve been thinking so much about my Stormchaser characters, a project that was regrettably lost to a truly magnificent depression spiral sometime mid-pandemic.  It’s funny—I usually take awhile to warm up to my OCs, and I guess in a way it has been awhile, but I already feel like I have them in my mind and really want to share their stories!  Just, you know, need more hours in the day.

29. What’s something about your writing that you’re proud of?

I think I do a really good job with dialogue, which is something I’m really proud of since it’s something I had to work hard on to achieve, and I can very much see and feel the progress over the years.  Dialogue used to be one of the harder things for me, something I sort of tried to avoid because it always felt so stilted and awkward, and now it’s like my fave thing, easy, can write dialogue off the top of my head with no effort.

Something I’ve noticed recently that I’m really happy with is I feel I’m getting better at describing characters, like, looking at and observing things about other characters?  And imbuing that with the emotion I mean to convey?  I’ve always felt that I really lacked in physical descriptions and tended to keep them short and simple, so I’m really happy with whatever brought about this sudden ability to write evocative descriptions.

Fanfiction Writing Asks

#exciting tag for answered asks #exciting tag for writing things #absolutely blest you granted me the opportunity to talk about a fraction of what has been overtaking my brain lately LOL #AND i got to not do this stupid assignment for a few blissful moments? #amazing

[justlittleguysims]

OC Introduction: Part 1 -The Protagonists

Before we get to posting random little guys, let me introduce you to the leads of my two main writing projects: Kristina-Renée Battle from Project: FCi3 and Derek Moore from my newest, currently untitled project that I'll be tagging under Project: WIP for now. Figured I'd post about them here together in one post since I couldn't decide who to post about first. Two birds, one stone and all that. They're both my babies, okay.

Both stories exist in our universe, each set in their own time period: FCi3 begins on July 20th of 2013 and WIP begins on December 18th of 2021. FCi3 is a cozy, slice of life, ensemble character comedy, while WIP is more of a slow burn, romantic drama with a side of more cozy, down to earth, slice of life elements I love and crave in most realistic fiction.

Kris Battle (She/Her)

Age: 29 || Birthday: Feb. 14th ♒ || Traits: Geek, Perfectionist, Genius, Ambitious || Height: 6'2"ft || Sexuality: Heterosexual ||Occupation: Unemployed Accountant || ethnicity/nationality: African-American

Less than a year after transferring from Hartford, Connecticut, to the Durham, North Carolina branch of the accounting firm she was working for, Kris finds herself out of work for the first time in five years due to company-wide downsizing and outsourcing. Struggling to find another accounting job near her, and running low on savings, she falls into a downward spiral, questioning her abilities, schooling, and life while falling behind on bills, student loan payments, and rent.

With the threat of eviction nearing too close for comfort, and a quick pep talk from her polar opposite, little sister, Serena, Kris bites the bullet and tries to find a roommate to move in with, realizing —for the first time in her life—that she simply can’t make her way through this on her own... but there's just one problem. Years of being the ivy league, model student, who was married to her job, while on a constant grind towards wealth and excellence, has left her hundreds of miles away from home, in a town she's neglected to plant roots in. She doesn't have any REAL friends she can rely on.

"Fortunes Come in Threes" follows Kris as she moves in with a generous stranger, who not only offers her a room to stay in, but also welcomes her into their friend group, finally allowing her the time to rediscover old hobbies, while relearning how to have guilt-free fun again. Sure, she still has her reservations about having to put her accounting degree on the back burner as she works at her local pizza joint to get by, but she's adapting... slowly. (She's totally not bitter about the situation at all~✨)

Derek Moore (He/Him)

Age: 33 || Birthday: July. 8th ♋ || Traits: Romantic, Loyal, Family Oriented, Gym Rat, Loves Outdoors || Height: 5'11"ft || Sexuality: Heterosexual? || Occupation: "Security" || ethnicity/nationality: Irish/Italian-American

Note: Derek is a newer character that I'm still developing. He started off as a simple "throw away" sim that I was using to test out new cc before using it to revamp my old FCi3 characters after getting back into the game over the pandemic. I don't know what happened, I just ended up liking this random guy enough to give him a cute little house, and then a cute teenage daughter, and everything sort of started to grow from there. So, here's what I have for Derek's character so far:

Derek is a widowed, single father to his only child, Angie who has just turned 17 back in November. He's currently working in the criminal career as the Muscle for a local branch of the Italian Mafia, trying his best to clear his late father's gambling debts. Angie doesn't know about the mafia loan sharks that control her father, all she knows is that he works in security and that he sometimes comes home a little banged up because of it.

After a year and a half without leaving his house to work with the mob during the pandemic, the world suddenly started to open up in April, meaning Derek has to go back to work as a rich man's pawn again. Being spoiled by nightly movie nights and impromptu at-home spa days with Angie, Derek's renewed itch to escape the mob has only grown stronger, but there is very little he can do on his own... that is until he makes the bold decision to take in an unhoused trans woman, named Morgan, during a snowstorm.

Making a promise to get her back on her feet, Derek soon realizes that he and his new house guest have a lot in common, including ties to one local political lobbyists who is seemingly hellbent on turning their town into a fascist safe haven... but together, Derek and Morgan, are working to bring him and his cronies down.

Oh... and somehow Angie is none the wiser about the entire thing. Shit's wild!

FUN FACT: Kris is actually taller than Derek. She's 6'2"ft (187.96 cm) to his 5'11"ft (180.34 cm). This fact is completely pointless, because they'll never meet and live several states away from each other, but it's whatever, yippee!

If you've reached this point of the post, THANK YOU for reading and please feel free to drop an ask about either of these characters. I hope to have more character updates in the coming weeks for you all. Please follow and yell at me to get shit done! Okay, thanks, BYE! 💜✨

Further Reading: OC Intros Pt. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 || Pizza Gang Pt. 1 | 2 | 3 || Family Intros Pt. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 || The Henchmen Pt. 1 | 2 || Multiverse Characters Pt. 1 || Monti’s Secret Pt. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

#justlittleguy posting #my ocs #new sims blog #new simblr #new simmer #project: WIP #FCi3: Kris #Project WIP: Derek #simblr #the sims 4 #ts4 male sims #ts4 cas #show us your sims #showusyoursims #ts4 simblr #project: fci3

[wordexpress]

Nirmala Sitharaman's prediction for India's economy as IMF cuts global growth

Nirmala Sitharaman said growth will be among the top priorities of the Narendra Modi government and attention will be paid to sustaining the momentum that the Indian economy has got coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who is in the US to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, on Tuesday forecasted India’s growth rate to be around 7 per cent this financial year.

Sitharaman said growth will be among the top priorities of the Narendra Modi government and attention will be paid to sustaining the momentum that the Indian economy has got coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Her statement comes even as the IMF, in its latest projection, predicted India’s GDP growth to be 6.8 per cent — down from a January projection of 8.2 per cent and in July estimate of 7.4 per cent. However, despite the slowdown, India would remain the fastest-growing major economy.

The IMF said on Tuesday global growth is expected to slow further next year, downgrading its forecasts as countries grapple with the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, spiraling cost-of-living and economic downturns.

The world economy has been dealt multiple blows, with the war in Ukraine driving up food and energy prices following the coronavirus outbreak, while soaring costs and rising interest rates threaten to reverberate around the globe.

“I am aware that growth forecasts around the world are being revised lower. We expect India’s growth rate to be around 7 per cent this financial year. More importantly, I am confident of India’s relative and absolute growth performance in the rest of the decade,” she said addressing a gathering in Washington.

Sitharaman, however, observed that the Indian economy is not exempt from the impact of the world economy. “No economy is,” she said.

“After the unprecedented shock of the pandemic, came the conflict in Europe with its implications for energy, fertiliser and food prices. Now, synchronised global monetary policy is tightening in its wake. So, naturally, growth projections have been revised lower for many countries, including India. This triple shock has made growth and inflation a double-edged sword,” Sitharaman said.

After the Russia-Ukraine conflict started in February 2022, there was a sharp increase in food and energy prices. India had to ensure that the rising cost of living did not lead to lower consumption through erosion of purchasing power.

“We addressed these multiple and complex challenges through a variety of interventions. One, India ramped up its vaccine production and vaccination. India has administered over 2 billion doses of vaccine produced domestically. Two, India’s digital infrastructure ensured the delivery of targeted relief Third, in 2022, after the conflict erupted in Europe, we ensured adequate availability of food and fuel domestically, lowered import duties on edible oil and cut excise duties on petrol and diesel. The central bank has acted swiftly to ensure that inflation did not get out of hand and that currency depreciation was neither rapid nor significant enough to lead to a loss of confidence,” the minister said.

Sitharaman said India is discussing with different countries to make Rupay acceptable in their nations.

“Not just that, the UPI (Unified Payments Interface), the BHIM app, and NCPI (the National Payments Corporation of India) are all now being worked in such a way that their systems in their respective country, however, robust or otherwise can talk to our system and the inter-operability itself will give strength for Indians expertise in those countries,” she said.

#Nirmala Sitharaman #Indian Economy #India Gdp

[arpov-blog-blog]

..."There’s no denying that the economy was good under Trump, and the 2019 pre-pandemic economy is now seen as a baseline against which Biden’s economy is being judged.

But Trump arrived in office when the economy was already pretty strong. He was “just riding on the coattails of a 10-year-long economic recovery,” said Alí R. Bustamante, deputy director of worker power and economic security at Roosevelt Forward, the progressive political arm of the Roosevelt Institute.

The economy continued to grow modestly on his watch until the pandemic hit in 2020, and after that, his stimulus checks kept it buoyant for a while. The stock market saw significant growth under Trump (and at least for the last year, under Biden, too — more on that later).

But some of Trump’s signature economic policies have also been found to have had little to no measurable effect on the economy — and a few might have even hurt. Multiple studies have shown that the Trump tariffs at best had a neutral effect on the economy and at worst cost America hundreds of thousands of jobs and higher prices for consumers. And his 2017 tax cuts, which increased investment in the economy and contributed to modest wage growth in the short term, fell far short of Republicans’ promise that they would pay for themselves and are projected to significantly raise federal debt and increase income inequality.

Biden, on the other hand, faced the immediate task upon assuming office of heading off a recession as the country started to bounce back from the pandemic. The US did recover from that pandemic economic slump. But there is evidence that his policies, including the stimulus checks he issued, contributed to an inflationary spiral.

The US did, however, manage to curb inflation faster than other economically developed countries, while also maintaining much lower levels of unemployment and higher wage growth.

The Federal Reserve might deserve most of the credit for that, given its carefully timed interest rate hikes. But Biden also has a very successful legislative record, including the bipartisan infrastructure law and the CHIPS Act — laws that experts say can help bolster the economy. And he took steps to reduce pandemic-induced pressure on supply chains, making it easier for truck drivers to become licensed and allowing some major ports to operate nonstop.

The US economy is growing faster than projected, driven largely by consumer spending and the Federal Reserve’s successful efforts to get inflation under control without triggering a recession.

While inflation has come down substantially from its 9.1 percent peak in June 2022, it still remains above the Fed’s target rate, and “ongoing progress toward our 2 percent inflation objective is not assured,” Fed chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers in early March. In February, inflation was higher than economists projected, at 3.2 percent, adding to the uncertainty.

But Americans’ wages are now growing faster than inflation, which should relieve some of the pressure of higher prices.

The problem for Biden is that the memory of peak inflation is still fresh, and not everyone has experienced wage growth equally. Bustamante said that younger workers and low earners account for the lion’s share of wage growth in the current economy."

[metalmessage]

RAVENLIGHT • Under the spell of bewitching mysticism!

Action: RAVENLIGHT Base: Belfast • Northern Ireland Genre: Symphonic Power Metal Title: Immemorial FFO: Nightwish, Kamelot, Sonata Arctica Format: Album Label: Distortion Project Records Distro: Code7 Release: Jan. 27, 2023

Bulletpoints:

2nd studio album of the Irish nature mystics

Beauty, longing & power in a touching trinity

Tasteful, emotional songs full of beauty & aesthetics

https://youtu.be/bt4-f6an7-U [ Official music video by TWKOM & John Connor ]

RAVENLIGHT comments on „Reflections“: „We chose ‚Reflections‘ as the first single for ‚Immemorial‘ as it was one of the early songs that set the tone for the rest of the album, it showcases a mix of emotional vocals and lyrics alongside heavy riffing and strong hooks, the contrast of light vs dark, heaviness vs beauty and hope vs fear runs throughout the whole release, and so it seemed like the perfect song and video to welcome the audience into that theme.“

https://youtu.be/NNaTeYLAoNU [ Official music video by John Connor ]

RAVENLIGHT comments on „Spirit Of Life“: „A unique track on the album – while most the songs represent darker themes, we decided to keep ‚Spirit Of Life‘ as the light in the darkness. The song was written to be infectiously fun and just a good time for the audience and listeners, so we made the video a little bit weirder than usual too!“

LINE-UP:

Rebecca Feeney • Vocals John Connor • Guitars, Keyboards Dean Kane • Bass Michał Bugajski • Drums

RAVENLIGHT returns, stronger than ever with their long awaited second album, „Immemorial“!

TRACKS 01. Masque Of Red Death (04:27) 02. Reflections (04:22) 03. The Painters Dream (04:33) 04. Spirit Of Life (03:58) 05. Paper Ships (03:37) 06. Rain (03:46) 07. Spiral (04:22) 08. Left Behind (05:57) 09. The Maze (04:13) 10. Springtime Lament (08:40)

total: 47:58 min.

Channelling their live energy into this new release, „Immemorial“ features 10 tracks of hard hitting Power Metal showcasing a range of styles and themes, from the reflective „Spiral“, to the grandiose „Springtime Lament“, this album highlights the band’s evolution and determination from the past few years.

FLASHBACK: Formed in 2018, RAVENLIGHT play an energetic brand of progressive tinged SYMPHONIC POWER METAL which have gained them a reputation as one of the most exciting and unique bands to emerge from the Irish Metal scene in recent years.

Starting with their 2018 EP release „End Of The World“, RAVENLIGHT quickly made their mark on the local scene and further afield with a number of shows across Ireland, including an invite to support Progressive Metal legends Evergrey in Dublin in March 2019.

At the start of 2020, RAVENLIGHT went back to the studio and recorded their debut album, „Project Genesis“, which was released in June 2020 across Europe and Japan via Novus Records, gaining positive reviews and press across the continent.

Unfortunately due to the pandemic, live shows to promote the album were postponed indefinitely, however instead of resting on their laurels, RAVENLIGHT returned once again to the studio to record their 2021 covers EP, „Intermission“ alongside a series of music videos shot over various lockdowns.

With restrictions easing, RAVENLIGHT made their long awaited return to the stage, with a delayed album launch show, a mere 21 months after the release of the album, an appearance at the Siege Of Limerick festival and shows supporting Firewind, Cruachan and Stormzone across Ireland.

DISCOGRAPHY 2018 • End Of The World • EP 2020 • Project Genesis • Full-length 2021 • Intermission • EP 2023 • Immemorial • Full-length RAVENLIGHT are available for interviews via phone, Skype, Zoom & email !

🌐 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙤 & 𝙋𝙍 Action: 𝗠𝗘𝗧𝗔𝗟 𝗠𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗔𝗚𝗘 ᴳᴸᴼᴮᴬᴸ • 𝐸𝓈𝓉. 2001 https://www.metalmessage.de/PR_RAVENLIGHT_en.php 💥 𝙌𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙦𝙪𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙩𝙮, 𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙨 𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙨!

MEDIA FEEDBACK:

9 / 10 ➤ „… an impressive album and it delivers everything, modern Symphonic Metal can offer: powerful guitar riffing, well composed orchestral arrangements, catchiness, epic melodies, ballads as well as dynamic and fresh songs … excellent vocalist who keeps the sound perfectly together and stamps her vocal authority on every track … set the bar very high for all other releases in 2023 … a must have …“ (Metal Temple)

85 / 100 ➤ „I was already thrilled with the first album. It’s no different now. Maybe just a little bit better … all in all very good …“ (Musika BE)

8,5 / 10 ➤ „The band stays true to their style, where emotive, melancholic and to some extent dramatic melodies lead a parade of tunes that invite moments of tranquillity … a good album mainly for Symphonic Metal lovers.“ (Locos Por El Power Metal)

3,5 / 5 ➤ „There are immeasurable reasons why this album impresses. Firstly, there is the lead singer who surely would’ve been a big name back in the day. Lastly, everything else. The album does not require extra immiscibility, it is already blended to perfection. The pounding drum, the beautifully played piano, and riffs; they strike a perfect balance between heavy and melodic. There is a sense of immenseness about the music, despite how straightforward it is. There is a great deal of passion behind it, and I believe that comes through immaculately.“ (Sputnik Music)

80 / 100 ➤ „… beautifully done Symphonic Metal songs with fresh and hard-hitting Power Metal … variety of styles … at all times musically … reflexive, melodic … Rebecca’s beautiful voice stands out a lot, it gives a unique softness to each track …“ (Darkzen Dragon)

8 / 10 ➤ „… has a very appealing orchestration … to enjoy, with eyes closed … beautiful vocals … RAVENLIGHT please keep it up, since today you have at least one more regular listener!“ (Obliveon)

8 / 10 ➤ „… I’m very impressed! Symphonic Power Metal is not my thing generally, but what this band are doing is unique to the Irish scene and offers something completely different. It also helps that they’re extremely good at what they do!“ (Burning Metal Irl)

8 / 10 ➤ „Symphonic class and not bombastic noise is what we expected, and they bring it with more than a little of their beautiful Irish charm layered in as well …“ (Powerplay)

7,5 / 10 ➤ „… some potential … good balance between the metallic and orchestral side … catchy melodic arcs … I really like its oldschool interpretation of Symphonic Power Metal and provides a nice counterbalance to the many identical sounding bands that populate the genre these days …“ (Powermetal DE)

72 / 100 ➤ „… arrangements are kept simple and, to some extent raw, providing an ideal backdrop for Rebecca Feeney’s mesmerizing performance. She excels both in technique and emotional expression, displaying impressive control and a remarkable low register that adds weight and gravitas to her singing. The transitions between operatic and powerful rock vocals are seamless and a major strength of the album.“ (Metal Archives)

70 / 100 ➤ „Although ‚Immemorial‘ addresses itself primarily to the users of Symphonic Power and related subgenres, I believe it can easily have its say outside this narrow market as well thanks to a down-to-earth, immediate and catchy making, which shrugs off the all too cloying excesses of certain colleagues and distances itself from certain disposable music. Well done.“ (TrueMetal IT)

7 / 10 ➤ „… somewhere in the intersection of Nightwish, Edenbridge, Crystal Gates and The Dark Element … Rebecca Feeney puts the stamp on the tracks with her expressive voice … should be a welcome addition to the collection of fans of this style of playing …“ (Hellfire Magazin)

7 / 10 ➤ „… not simply looking back … the band also push forward by integrating interesting influences … a strong album that will appeal to a diverse range of listeners … fans of early Nightwish and traditional European Symphonic Power Metal will enjoy it, especially if they’re seeking something less pop-oriented … ‚Immemorial‘ is more than just retrogressive Symphonic Metal and may resonate with Metalheads who enjoy Occult Rock and even female-fronted Progressive Rock.“ (Metal Observer)

3,5 / 5 ➤ „… vocal approach inspired by Nightwish’s Tarja … contains some interesting influences of traditional Irish music …“ (All Around Metal)

10 / 15 ➤ „… with fine prog elements. Vocally, Mrs. Feeney moves in the higher, opera-like areas on … RAVENLIGHT know how to please in this genre, which is overflowing especially in recent years. Especially the now and then interspersed progressive elements, the piano passages and the wise decision not to inflate the songs too pompously, let you listen again and again …“ (My Revelations)

➤ „This optimally functioning, catchy melodic mix can make ‚Immemorial‘ a small, fine treasure for all those who would like to experience it as dreamy and enchanting as possible.“ (Sonic Seducer)

➤ „… true, signature Symphonic Metal style … like a good stew, it evolves on low heat … let its flavors meld and blend into each other … Rebecca’s vocals are once again superb and at times rise to the sublime, to a level that definitely and defiantly rivals some of the bigger and indeed biggest names working in the genre … excellent …“ (Über Röck)

➤ „Balm for the ears! … RAVENLIGHT definitely can’t escape a comparison with Nightwish, but that’s not necessarily a bad attribute … RAVENLIGHT, however, don’t reach so strongly into the symphonic box and so ‚Immemorial‘ could please all those who like clear female voices and like to lose themselves in pleasant tones …“ (Metalmamas Neuigkeiten)

➤ „… a remarkable Symphonic Metal work … with front lady Rebecca Feeney, the Northern Irish band has a singer with an excellent voice in its ranks, which should not only appeal to fans of classically trained voices, but also to fans of more Rock-oriented vocals …“ (Female Fronted Power)

➤ „… durch ihren variablen Gesang erlebt man Emotionen, die für solche Songs sehr wichtig sind … eine talentierte Band, die ihre Instrumente perfekt beherrscht … musikalisch sind sie wirklich sehr gut …“ (Nightshade)

➤ „… guitars play an important role in RAVENLIGHT’s music. They are strong, with great overtones, with flashy lines, and, most of all, prominent … RAVENLIGHT give Rebecca all the chances to bright very shiny and she does … great …“ (Metal Addicts)

➤ „… full of freshness, but with a certain nostalgic touch … a good album, strongly reminiscent of Nightwish in their first phase, combining this concept with a more progressive development … from beginning to end we can enjoy different subgenres in it … enjoy them!“ (Nada Hay Bajo El Sol)

➤ „… RAVENLIGHT have grown a lot … will definitely surprise you … it’s really different and a big step forward …“ (D Metal Galaxy)

etc. [ Logo: John Connor ] [ Pic: TWKOM Media ] [ Artwork: John Connor ]

[polandspringz]

vent//

wrote this in my planner and probably should just keep it to myself but i like the feeling of yelling into the void, bc most ppl won’t click on a vent post but theres the destructive self satisfaction of the belief that maybe someone will- anyway, my normal method of dealing with these feelings is to warp them into a self indulgent fanfic that changes enough about what im thinking so that its not accusatory, but helps me by just getting my thoughts out but gives me an uplifting feeling, a better conclusion to whatever im frustrated about (if you read my designing in devildom fic, the birthday fic from last year was an example of that) anyway, if you see any weirdly flowery phrases in this vent (to whoever is actually reading this, hello) its sort of my way to also practice my writing, because i cannot write or think without a voice telling me i’m on a stage and need to tell someone or have someone listen, and there it is again

anyway for the third time, that’s sort of what this vent is about- the core of it really. im just a college student whose very lonely near the end of her week in the dorms. ive been very frustrated as of late because i tried to get out a competition project my professor suggested i do but i wasnt forceful enough and now theyre doubling down on me doing it; its weird because last year this time around i was lunging at every possible opportunity, but now i don’t want anything to do with it. so i’ve been anxious about that all day. i also start work tomorrow as an assistant to said professor, and that’s also stressing me out partially. i cried during a class w/ another professor bc i was just so stressed and overthinking my lack of creativity, but, well, you know the word that’s coming next. anyway-

anyway anyway, back to being lonely. it’s been a feeling thats been building up since the pandemic, and i know everyone experienced it to some extent, and outside of the pandemic, everyone experiences it to some extent as they get older. HS friends part ways as college happens, but its still distressing. for me, first one friend went away, then it was two. granted, i had already been feeling the 2nd friendship fray, so that one hasn’t been that painful, but it’s been the successive ones in recent months. one of my friends get medicine for their focus, and i hate to say this, but they’ve become a boring person. they don’t have time to watch things anymore, all they do is work, work, work. the one thing we had started to really bond over, anime, they now have no time for. and it gets tiring staring back at days and weeks of unanswered messages even when you’re only sending them something funny you know they would appreciate

and its that same sort of feeling for the other friendships that ive been feeling stressed about. i know that other ppl get burnt out too and im supposed to respect people’s need to space, i understand that, and it’s because i understand that that i keep feeling guilty over being upset. i want to stress to the imaginary audience that its not just one message goes unanswered and i get upset, its days of it. when it goes from someone you used to talk to 24/7 to nothing, it can be shocking, and this pattern has been happening to me for a while. in a way, i suppose i do have trauma associated with it (little t trauma for clarification) because i had a friend in middle school that I drifted apart from mid high school because we were at separate schools, and they stopped talking to me slowly until something happened when we tried to hang out that really upset me, and i got mad about it but didn’t communicate it well and then we barely spoke again. i don’t like internalizing these feelings, but i don’t know how to bring these things up without berating myself for not respecting people’s space and then i continue to spiral. but anyway, i got off track again-

with my other friendships, its the same sort of thing. one of the reasons i question whether im neurodivergent or not is because in the past few years i have felt myself being overly conscious of social situations. i think about maintaining eye contact as i do it, i tell myself to nod and smile and react to things people say. i realized at sometime in hs that i needed to be more equivalent exchange about things with my friends, and i hate feeling like this but its almost like a tally system in my head- for everything i ask my friends to watch i try and watch or do something for them to even out the friendship, because otherwise i feel like im too overwhelming, i need to restrain myself because otherwise they’ll get annoyed that everything’s always about ME, and i don’t want my friends to dislike me, i want them to be my friends, so it really hurts me when ive been putting in a lot of mental work to try and “be a good friend” so i don’t upset ppl and then i don’t receive that back or at least not in the exchange i expected; i.e. we watch a show you like, now we watch one i like, i give you a gift, you give me a gift back eventually (does not need to be physical gift, some acknowledgement, some thank you, etc.) i mention shows in particular since im normally recommending anime to ppl frequently, and i know it probably doesn’t show bc it seems like i recommend everything i watch that i like, but i really do think a lot about whether a show has something in it my friends would like- even if its not their normal genre, i see there’s something in it, a dynamic, the artwork, something, and there was a time where it felt like ppl were almost making a joke out of telling me No everytime i tried to recommend them something, like it was funny to shut me down like that, but luckily i have moved past that feeling

but anyway, right now im just lonely. tired of seeing my own messages staring back at me. i want replies to my messages, but then i feel guilty, that its not deserved, because there are times where i dont reply to those that were also sent. its that equivalent exchange thing again, where i cant be mad because even though i am experiencing this x amount of times, i did the same thing y amount of times, so i shouldnt be mad because it’s normal. but im just lonely. i dont really have friends on campus yet, not any true friends that im not desperately trying to appear normal around (the way i try and act SO normal around my roommate is insane). the people that i do know on campus always forget to make plans when they say we should. the clubs i try to join end up giving me more anxiety than fun. i eat alone in the dining hall, i walk alone to class among the groups of friends. i have eaten two meals with other people on campus by plan/coincidence since september. it hit me today that registration for the fall and housing would be beginning soon, and i had the realization that i don’t know what one of my friend’s, one of the few that are still in state, will be doing after they finish up there work at their current college and need to transfer somewhere. they will probably be going to join my other two friends out of state. its not my life so it’s not my decision to have a part in, and i didnt feel bitter when i realized that they probably wont be joining me at my school since registration is so soon, but i did feel sad. i dreamt about another hs friend last night who i have long since lost contact with. i don’t know what im going to be doing when i get out of school

random other vent to end on, but i cant stop thinking about stickers. ive been internalizing this as well, but going back to the gift giving thing, ive been very frustrated bc someone offered to buy me stickers for my birthday last month, so i sent them a list. they asked for my list again, forgetting that i had already gave it to them. i resent it. days went by and nothing, i knew they were forgetting, but it was too awkward to bring up, and i felt selfish and awful for keeping track of it in my head. eventually, i had an impulse purchase want, and they said they would buy that for me instead. i was torn, bc while i wanted the new item, i was upset that they had forgotten again about the stickers. i really had wanted them, and i wasnt able to buy them myself because the shipping was expensive, but for a birthday gift i reasoned that it would be acceptable since it was only a few items. i decided on the trade off of the new item, thinking the person would remember it better. they forgot. then a video game came out and i really wanted it but i was betting on either saving up for it when my job started, or i wouldve used the gift cards my mom gets as rewards for shopping in an app to pay for it since she always gives the rewards to me. but bc the person hadnt gotten me a gift yet and other ppl knew about it, my mom basically told them to buy me the video game and so i got that. so now i feel like im not allowed to be mad about the stickers. but the thing that made it worse was the whole time while i was waiting for the stickers/ them to read my list in the first few days, they were buying stickers for themselves. and they were showing them to me. and i couldnt help but think how i wanted them. and it still hurts, like i hate how i still feel bitter when they show me their stickers, because all i can think about is how i didnt get what i wanted, and it makes me feel like a selfish, ungrateful person. it didnt help that it was coupled by another person forgetting about me around the same time, another thing im too scared to bring up irl because i know that nothing good can come of it! there’s no way to tell someone something like this without sounding selfish and like you’re whining, i hate it, and i hate it because i should be happy now and leave it in the past, but i cant

#poland's thoughts